14 VOCAL SOUNDS OF 



and words. For, articulation is the combined result of a reflecting mind ; of 

 an acate ear, which hears the sounds of others and our own ; of vocal organs, 

 trained for many years ; of the effect of continued traditional utterance ; and 

 of a skill, gradually acquired, unconsciously to analyze sounds which we perceive. 

 As the second class may be mentioned positive imitations, or copies of sound 

 — the onomatopy of the gi-ammarians. Man resorts to it at the earliest periods, 

 partly led to it by the inherent imitative principle •, partly because sound, wher- 

 ever it is produced at all, is the most distinctive characteristic, and becomes the 

 readiest sign for the being that utters it, inasmuch as the ear perceives a sound, 

 and nothing more ; while the eye perceives at once an object in all its visual 

 relations, as an image which must be analyzed in order to be described. The 

 eye perceives totahties, the ear single characteristics. It is incomparably easier 

 to designate a sheep or a cataract, by imitating the bleating of the one or the 

 rumbling noise of the other, than to describe them by words already existing, or 

 by drawing outlines of these objects. All languages, therefore, are full of such 

 words as Sibilare, Mutter, Whiz, Splash, Boan, Bronte, Claquer, Knarren, 

 Lachen. 



Men, naturally, take refuge in the onomatopy, when they must commune with 

 one another without mutually knowing their languages. There is a very inter- 

 esting paper by the late Mr. Gallatin in the second volume of the Transactions 

 of the New York Ethnological Society, on the "Jargon," or Trade Language 

 of Oregon. The reader will find thei'e a long list of onomatopies, such as are 

 frequently formed in our nurseries, where the dog is called bow-wow^ or the cow 

 moo-moo. Thus the words tingling^ he-he^ mash, tumtum, poo, signify in that 

 Oregon Jargon, respectively, bell, to laugh, crushed or broken, the heart, to 

 shoot. 



Laura not hearing any tones, cannot, of course, originate onomatopies. 

 Two other classes of words are at once formed from the two preceding ones. 

 Interjections themselves are used at an early period as words, (as I have heard 

 children say, " This is fie," for this is naughty ;) but what is more important, 

 interjections soon form the roots of other words. Thus the feeling of wonder 

 seeks vent from every human breast in the symphenomenal sound of o, or one 

 between o and a, (the latter as in father.) The ideas of admiration and wonder 

 again, and more of height, tallness, power, are closely connected in the human 

 intellect •, so that we find in original languages words designating height, eleva- 

 tion, derived from this interjection, as the German Hoch, for high, which is 

 nothing but the interjection o, wrapt as it were in strong aspirates. Every 

 where men cast shame upon others by an interjection sounding Aih ; and atSci; 

 means, in Greek, actions of which we ought to be ashamed ; and Jletschen, in 

 German, means to call aih at a person, or strongly to deride him. Disgust, 

 mingled with contempt, is expressed by all men by a symphenomenon, which 

 consists of a sharp exhalation of the sound /, which is the combined effect of 

 the lower lip being somewhat protruded, while the upper one is contemptuously 

 drawn up, and the breath is strongly uttered — all, the effects of the prevailing 



